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VC firm 137 Ventures announced Thursday that it has raised more than $700 million across two new growth-stage funds to back startups “with the potential for significant market impact.” In the past year, the firm, founded by former Founders Fund investor Justin Fishner-Wolfson, said it has deployed more than a billion dollars into companies building … Read more
Uber’s forthcoming luxury robotaxi service with Lucid Motors and Nuro is getting a fourth partner: Hertz. The companies announced Thursday that Hertz will provide “day-to-day vehicle asset management, including charging, maintenance, repairs, cleaning, and depot staffing.” The service, announced last year, is supposed to launch by the end of 2026 in the San Francisco Bay … Read more
Artificial intelligence continues to advance at a dizzying clip, forcing enterprises to develop and release new products quicker than ever or risk becoming irrelevant to a faster-moving competitor. Salesforce believes it has found a strategy that allows it to keep up even if it isn’t clear where AI is headed next. The customer management software … Read more
Financial services platform Stripe is introducing a digital wallet specifically built for the AI era, where autonomous agents can perform tasks that include shopping, paying for reservations, buying tickets, and more. At its annual conference this week, the company introduced Link, a wallet that allows you to connect various payment methods, track your spending, and … Read more
TikTok is launching a new “Campus Hub,” the company told TechCrunch in an email on Thursday. The new hub features dedicated college group chats and personalized feeds designed to help students stay connected with their campus communities, even while they’re away for the summer. The new hub builds on the app’s campus verification feature, which … Read more
Google announced on Thursday that it will begin rolling out Gemini to cars with Google built-in, marking a significant upgrade from the current Google Assistant. The move signals Google’s push to bring more advanced, conversational AI into the driving experience. The announcement follows closely behind news from General Motors, which revealed yesterday that Gemini is … Read more
Founders building in the healthcare space can’t just build fast and break things. Timelines stretch longer, stakes are higher, and success depends on navigating systems that reward rigor over speed. That’s exactly the reality Robhy Bustami, co-founder and CEO of BioticsAI, has been building in. His company is developing an AI copilot for ultrasound that … Read more
After being harried by complaints that its search function needed improving, Reddit has in the last few years invested in its search engine, and has even added AI features to help its users find what they’re looking for. It appears that investment is finally paying off: The company has seen a 30% year-on-year jump in … Read more
OpenAI and Anthropic have been on the warpath lately against third-party efforts to train new AI models by prompting their publicly accessible chatbots and APIs, a process known as “distillation.” That conversation has focused on Chinese firms using distillation to create open-weight models that are nearly as capable as U.S. offerings, but available at a … Read more
OpenAI is getting serious about account security. The company on Thursday launched Advanced Account Security (AAS), a set of opt-in protections for ChatGPT users designed for high-value individuals — but available to anyone who wants them. As part of that new program, digital security provider Yubico announced it has partnered with OpenAI to link two … Read more
